Feds issue draft assessment that could doom Minnesota mine
By STEVE KARNOWSKI

FILE - In this Oct. 4, 2011, photo, a core sample drilled from underground rock near Ely, Minn., shows a band of shiny minerals containing copper, nickel and precious metals, center, that Twin Metals Minnesota LLC, hopes to mine near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota. The U.S. Forrest Service issued a draft environmental assessment Thursday, June 23, 2022, that backs a proposed 20-year moratorium on copper-nickel mining upstream from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski, File)


ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service issued a draft environmental assessment Thursday to lay the foundation for a proposed 20-year moratorium on copper-nickel mining upstream from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Formally, the proposal would “withdraw” from new mineral leasing for 20 years about 352 square miles within the Rainy River watershed in the Superior National Forest around the town of Ely. The plan threatens to doom the proposed Twin Metals mine near Birch Lake, which drains into a river that flows into the Boundary Waters. But it would not affect a separate project, the proposed PolyMet mine near Babbitt and Hoyt Lakes, which lies in a different watershed.

The Forest Service plans to start a 30-day comment period Tuesday when it publishes a notice in the Federal Register. The assessment was posted on the project website at go.usa.gov/xtaCw. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will make the final decision on whether to approve the moratorium.

“The proposed mineral withdrawal aims to prevent further negative environmental impacts from future mining operations,” the Forest Service said in its announcement of the draft. “It also evaluates the impacts of future mining on important social, cultural, and economic values.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, who represents a St. Paul-area district and is sponsoring legislation to permanently ban copper-nickel mining in that area, welcomed the study, as did environmental groups that have been fighting the Twin Metals project for years. They say the risk of acid mine drainage poses an unacceptable threat to the country’s most-visited federally designated wilderness area.

McCollum said in a statement that the draft “makes it clear that sulfide-ore copper mining in the Superior National Forest is a toxic threat to the Boundary Waters. This pristine, precious wilderness demands permanent protection. The EA’s scientific foundation leaves no doubt: it is simply too risky to mine in this location.”

But Twin Metals said in a statement that the study was “not informed by science” and contradicts the goals of the Biden administration to ensure domestic accessibility of copper and other minerals needed for the renewable energy economy.

“We remain confident that we will move this project forward, responsibly source clean energy minerals and bring 750 family-sustaining jobs and 1,500 spinoff jobs to the communities of northeast Minnesota,” the company said.

Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, who represents northeastern Minnesota, where iron mining is a major industry, said the Biden administration “politicized” the review to kill Twin Metals instead of evaluating the project on its own merits.

“Biden and his fellow elitist Democrats in Washington and St. Paul are denying my constituents of our way of life,” Stauber said in a statement. “Joe Biden has made his position clear: he’d rather have foreign and child slave labor produce minerals instead of American union miners working to deliver Minnesota’s mineral wealth to the nation and world using the best environmental and labor standards.”

The Forest Service first proposed the moratorium in the final days of the Obama administration, which canceled Twin Metals’ two federal mineral rights leases. The Trump administration reversed that decision and canceled the environmental assessment process,. But the Biden administration revived the proposed mor atorium last year, and in January terminated the leases, saying they had been unlawfully reinstated.

Twin Metals is owned by the Chilean mining company Antofagasta. The proposed $1.7 billion underground mine was in the very early stages of the permitting process until the state Department of Natural Resources pulled the plug on its own environmental review in February, citing the company’s loss of the federal leases.

“The environmental assessment released today provides a strong scientific foundation for a 20-year ban on copper mining near the Boundary Waters,” Becky Rom, national chair for the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, said in a statement. “It is deeply rooted in peer-reviewed science, law, and established federal public lands policy, and validates the concerns of local residents and the American people about the risk sulfide-ore copper mining poses to the Wilderness.”

Widespread strikes disrupt services in North Macedonia

June 22, 2022

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — A strike by government workers in North Macedonia disrupted services Wednesday over a pay dispute between unions and the country’s center-left government fueled by high inflation.

Police associations, health care workers, municipal employees and others joined the strike, leaving essential services running with emergency staffing levels.

The National Federation of Trade Unions, or SSM, in North Macedonia is demanding pay increases for public sector workers after inflation increased for a ninth straight month in May to reach a 14-year high of 11.9 %, up from 10.5 % in April. The average monthly wage in the country is around 480 euros ($500).

“We need that money because of double-digit inflation, price shocks and the announced energy crisis,” SSM leader Darko Dimovski said.

In the center of the capital, Skopje, protesters left 120 empty chairs in front of parliament Wednesday, matching the number of the country’s lawmakers. The 24-hour rolling strikes were launched after a parliamentary budget committee failed to comply with union demands for a proposed salary adjustment scale. The strike disrupted mostly administrative services. Flights at the country’s main international airport, in Skopje, weren’t immediately affected.

Climate change a factor in ‘unprecedented’ South Asia floods

By ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL and AL-EMRUN GARJON

June 22, 2022

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Flood affected people wait to receive relief material in Sylhet, Bangladesh, Wednesday, June 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)


SYLHET, Bangladesh (AP) — Scientists say climate change is a factor behind the erratic and early rains that triggered unprecedented floods in Bangladesh and northeastern India, killing dozens and making lives miserable for millions of others.

Although the region is no stranger to flooding, it typically takes place later in the year when monsoon rains are well underway.

This year’s torrential rainfall lashed the area as early as March. It may take much longer to determine the extent to which climate change played a role in the floods, but scientists say that it has made the monsoon — a seasonable change in weather usually associated with strong rains — more variable over the past decades. This means that much of the rain expected to fall in a year is arriving in a space of weeks.

The northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya received nearly three times its average June rainfall in just the first three weeks of the month, and neighboring Assam received twice its monthly average in the same period. Several rivers, including one of Asia’s largest, flow downstream from the two states into the Bay of Bengal in low-lying Bangladesh, a densely populated delta nation.

With more rainfall predicted over the next five days, Bangladesh’s Flood Forecast and Warning Centre warned Tuesday that water levels would remain dangerously high in the country’s northern regions.

The pattern of monsoons, vital for the agrarian economies of India and Bangladesh, has been shifting since the 1950s, with longer dry spells interspersed with heavy rain, said Roxy Matthew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, adding that extreme rainfall events were also projected to increase.

Until now, floods in northeastern Bangladesh were rare while Assam state, famed for its tea cultivation, usually coped with floods later in the year during the usual monsoon season. The sheer volume of early rain this year that lashed the region in just a few weeks makes the current floods an “unprecedented” situation, said Anjal Prakash, a research director at India’s Bharti Institute of Public Policy, who has contributed to U.N.-sponsored study on global warming.

“This is something that we have never heard of and never seen,” he said.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gave a similarly grim assessment Wednesday.

“We haven’t faced a crisis like this for a long time. Infrastructure must be constructed to cope with such disasters,” she told a news conference in Dhaka. “The water coming from Meghalaya and Assam has affected the Sylhet region” in northeastern Bangladesh, she said, adding that there is no quick respite for the country.

Hasina said that floodwaters would recede soon from the northeast, but they would likely hit the country’s southern region soon on the way to the Bay of Bengal.

“We should prepare to face it,” she said. “We live in a region where flooding happens quite often, which we have to bear in mind. We must prepare for that.”

A total of 42 people have died in Bangladesh since May 17 while Indian authorities reported that flood deaths have risen to 78 in Assam state, with 17 others killed in landslides.

Hundreds of thousands are displaced and millions in the region have been forced to scramble to makeshift evacuation centers.

Bangladesh, home to about 160 million, has historically contributed a fraction of the world’s emissions. Meanwhile, a decade-old deal for rich nations, who have contributed more to global emissions, to give $100 billion to poorer nations every year to adapt to climate change and switch to cleaner fuels hasn’t been fulfilled. And the money that is provided is spread too thin.

That means that countries like Bangladesh — whose GDP has risen from $6.2 billion in 1972 to $305 billion in 2019 — have to redirect funds to combat climate change, instead of of spending it on policies aimed at lifting millions from poverty.

“This is a problem which is created by the global industrialized north. And we are paying the price for it because they have ignored their responsibility,” Prakash said.

In the hardest-hit city of Sylhet, shop owner Mohammad Rashiq Ahamed has returned home with his families to see what can be salvaged from floods. Wading through knee-deep water, he said that he was worried about waters rising again. “The weather is changing ... there can be another disaster, at any time.”

He is one of about 3.5 million Bangladeshis who face the same predicament each year when rivers flood, according to a 2015 analysis by the World Bank Institute. Bangladesh is considered one of the most vulnerable to climate change and the poor are disproportionately impacted.

Parul Akhter, a poultry farmer, held on to her disabled son to save him from the floodwaters in Sylhet. But she lost her only income — her chickens — and all other belongings.

“The chicken farm was the only way for me to live. I have no other means to earn,” she said.

Mohammad Arfanuzzaman, a climate change expert at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, said that catastrophic floods like the one this year could have wide-ranging impacts, from farmers losing their crops and being trapped in a cycle of debt to children not being able to go to school and at increased risk to disease.

“Poor people are suffering a lot from the ongoing flooding,” he said.

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Ghosal reported from New Delhi. Associated Press writers Julhas Alam from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Victoria Milko in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Fishing feud at end of the world split US and UK over Russia

By JOSHUA GOODMAN

 June 22, 2022

Fillets of Chilean sea bass caught near the U.K.-controlled South Georgia island are displayed for sale at a Whole Foods Market in Cleveland, Ohio on June 17, 2022. A diplomatic row is taking place near the South Pole dividing the normally allied U.S. and U.K. governments in response to provocations from Russia over catch limits of the meaty toothfish. The feud could lead to an import ban on the fish, which U.S. officials insist is being caught unlawfully in violation of rules governed by the Antarctic Treaty. (AP Photo/Joshua Goodman)


MIAMI (AP) — It’s one of the world’s highest-fetching wild-caught fish, sold for $32 a pound at Whole Foods and served up as meaty fillets on the menus of upscale eateries across the U.S.

But Russia’s obstruction of longstanding conservation efforts, resulting in a unilateral rejection of catch limits for the Chilean sea bass in a protected region near Antarctica, has triggered a fish fight at the bottom of the world, one dividing longtime allies, the U.S. and U.K. governments.

The diplomatic feud, which has not been previously reported, intensified after the U.K. quietly issued licenses this spring to fish for the sea bass off the coast of South Georgia, a remote, uninhabited U.K.-controlled island some 1,400 kilometers east of the Falkland Islands.

As a result, for the first time since governments banded together 40 years ago to protect marine life near the South Pole, deep-sea fishing for the pointy-toothed fish is proceeding this season without any catch limit from the 26-member Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources or CCAMLR.

The move essentially transformed overnight one of the world’s best-managed fisheries into a France-sized stretch of outlaw ocean — at least in the eyes of U.S. officials threatening to bar U.K. imports from the area.

“In a world beset by conflict, the U.K. is playing a risky game,” said Will McCallum, head of oceans at Greenpeace U.K. “The history of Antarctic protection is one of peaceful cooperation for the common good of humanity. Russia’s consistent willingness to abuse the process cannot excuse unilateral action by other Members. We trust that countries who have previously imported South Georgia toothfish will not accept the catch of what is now an unregulated fishery.”

For decades, the fishery near South Georgia was a poster child for international fisheries cooperation, one that brought together sometimes adversarial powers like Russia, China and the U.S. to protect the chilly, crystal blue southern ocean from the sort of fishing free-for-all seen on the high seas.

Last year, as tensions with the West were rising over Ukraine, Russia took the unprecedented step of rejecting the toothfish catch limits proposed by the Antarctic commission’s scientists. The move was tantamount to a unilateral veto because of rules, common to many international fisheries pacts, that require all decisions to be made by unanimous agreement.

But critics say the U.K.’s response — issuing licenses without a CCAMLR-approved catch limit — is unlawful under the commission’s rules and weakens the Antarctica Treaty established during the Cold War that set aside the continent as a scientific preserve. U.S. officials have also privately told their U.K. counterparts that they would likely bar imports of any toothfish caught near South Georgia, according to correspondence between U.S. fisheries managers and members of Congress seen by The Associated Press.

The fight underscores how Russia’s attempts to undermine the West have extended to even obscure forums normally removed from geopolitical tussles. It also risks reviving Britain’s tensions with Argentina, which invaded South Georgia in 1982 as part of its war with the U.K. over the Falkland Islands.

But the outcome couldn’t be more consequential: With fish stocks across the globe declining due to overfishing, consumers are demanding greater transparency about where the filets on their plates are sourced. Central to that effort is rules-based international fisheries management on the open ocean and environmentally sensitive areas like the polar regions.

“It sets a dangerous precedent,” said Evan Bloom, who for 15 years, until his retirement from the State Department in 2020, led the U.S. delegation to the CCAMLR.

“What the Russians did clearly violates the spirit of science-based fisheries management,” added Bloom, who is now an expert on polar issues at the Wilson Center in Washington. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the U.K. can act unilaterally.”

Three of the four vessels authorized by the U.K. to fish near South Georgia starting May 1 belong to Argos Froyanes, a British-Norwegian company that pioneered techniques credited with dramatically reducing seabird mortality in the south Atlantic.

One of its customers is New York-based Mark Foods, the largest U.S. supplier of sea bass certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, the industry’s gold standard for sustainability.

CEO Barry Markman declined an interview request but said his company would not import any product deemed illegal by U.S. authorities.

“We have been working collaboratively with U.S. officials to resolve this situation in a favorable manner,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Chilean seabass — the commercial name of Patagonia toothfish — from South Georgia is sold at both Whole Foods and Orlando-based Darden Restaurants, which operates the fine-dining chains Eddie V’s and The Capital Grille. Neither company responded to a request for comment.

An official from the government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which issued the licenses in coordination with the U.K. foreign office, said it took action so as not to give in to obstructionist tactics by Russia that it doesn’t expect will end anytime soon.

The fishery is one of the best managed in the world, with catch limits set by South Georgia below even the quota recommended by the Antarctic commission. In addition, all vessels authorized to fish near the island have observers and tamper-proof electronic monitoring equipment on board.

Officials say that closing the fishery would’ve taken valuable resources away from research and monitoring because about 70% of the island chain’s budget comes from the sale of licenses.

They point out that the population of toothfish — a bottom-dwelling species capable of living up to 50 years — almost collapsed in the days before CCAMLR due to poachers, many from the former Soviet Union, drawn to the high prices paid for the fish, which can weigh over 200 pounds. However, thanks in part to the multinational efforts of the commission, the species has bounced back.

But U.S. officials have taken a dim view of the U.K.’s actions.

Janet Coit, a senior official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wrote in an April 25 letter obtained by the AP that in the absence of approved protections, any fishing near South Georgia would be of “questionable legality” and have “serious implications” for the Antarctic commission.

She also stated that any shipments of fish harvested in what’s known as subarea 48.3 would likely be barred from entering the U.S., a preliminary view she said was shared with the U.K. government and U.S. importers to guide their decision-making.

“We recognize that fish from this subarea has represented a substantial percentage of toothfish imports,” according to the letter, which was sent to a bipartisan group of seven House members concerned about the impact of a ban on the seafood industry. “However, we are bound by our obligations under the CAMLR Convention, applicable conservation measures in force, and relevant U.S. law.”

The financial hit for the seafood industry from any import ban could be significant.

Every year, the U.S. imports around 3 million pounds of MSC-certified toothfish from South Georgia, worth about $50 million. The loss of those imports can’t be easily substituted because the four other MSC-certified toothfish fisheries in the CCAMLR convention area — run by Australia, France and the Falkland Islands — are fishing at or near capacity. Overall, about 15% of the more than 12,000 metric tons of toothfish caught in the CCAMLR convention area comes from South Georgia.

Under U.S. law, fishing conducted in a way that disregards conservation measures, such as catch limits, adopted by international fishery organizations to which the U.S. is a party, is considered illegal. Vessels that engage in such activity can be denied access to U.S. ports and blacklisted within the Antarctic commission framework.

Meanwhile, the U.K. has shown no sign of backing down. Even with no conservation measure in place, it insists it will continue to operate the fishery in the conservative way it always has, basing its decisions on the quota and other guidelines proposed by commision scientists.

“Russia egregiously blocked the agreed catch limits citing spurious scientific concerns not recognized by any other member of the CCAMLR,” the U.K.’s foreign office said in a statement. “The UK will continue to operate the toothfish fishery within the framework agreed by all CCAMLR Members.”

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Follow Goodman at @APJoshGoodman

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Cement carbon dioxide emissions quietly double in 20 years

By SETH BORENSTEIN

June 22, 2022

Sheep graze on a grass land near a cement plant on the outskirts of Beijing, China, Oct. 17, 2015. New global data released in May 2022, shows that emissions of heat-trapping gases coming from making cement have doubled in the last 20 years. It's all being driven by China, which is responsible for more than half of the globe's cement carbon emissions. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

Heat trapping carbon dioxide emissions from making cement, a less talked about but major source of carbon pollution, have doubled in the last 20 years, new global data shows.

In 2021, worldwide emissions from making cement for buildings, roads and other infrastructure hit nearly 2.9 billion tons (2.6 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide, which is more than 7% of the global carbon emissions, according to emissions scientist Robbie Andrew of Norway’s CICERO Center for International Climate Research and the Global Carbon Project. Twenty years ago, in 2002, cement emissions were some 1.4 billion tons (1.2 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide.

Driven by China, global cement emissions globally have more than tripled since 1992, recently growing at a rate of 2.6% a year. It’s not just that more cement is being made and used. At a time when all industries are supposed to be cleaning up their processes, cement has actually been going in the opposite direction. The carbon intensity of cement — how much pollution is emitted per ton — has increased 9.3% from 2015 to 2020, primarily because of China, according to the International Energy Agency.

“Cement emission have grown faster than most other carbon sources,” said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson, who leads Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that track worldwide climate pollution and publish their work in peer reviewed journals. “Cement emissions were also unusual in that they never dropped during COVID. They didn’t grow as much, but they never declined the way oil, gas and coal did. Honestly, I think it’s because the Chinese economy never really shut down completely.”

Cement is unusual compared to other major materials, such as steel, because not only does it require a lot of heat to make, which causes emissions, but the chemical process of making cement itself produces a lot of carbon dioxide, the major human-caused long-term heat-trapping gas.

The recipe for cement requires lots of a key ingredient called clinker, the crumbly binding agent in the entire mixture. Clinker is made when limestone, calcium carbonate, is taken out of the ground and heated to 2700 to 2800 degrees (1480 to 1540 degrees Celsius) to turn it into calcium oxide. But that process strips carbon dioxide out of the limestone and it goes into the air, Andrew said.

Rick Bohan, senior vice president for sustainability at the industry group Portland Cement Association, said, “in the U.S., 60% of our CO2 is a chemical fact of life... The reality is concrete is a universal building material. There is no single construction project that doesn’t use some amount of concrete in it.”

Cement, which is the key ingredient in concrete, is in buildings, roads and bridges.

“Each person on the planet is consuming on average more than a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cement per day,” said University of California Earth systems scientist Steve Davis. “Obviously, you’re not going to, you know, Home Depot and buying a sack of cement every day. But on your behalf, the roads and buildings and bridges out there are using more than a kilogram. And that’s kind of mind boggling to me.”

Even though there are greener ways to make cement, cutting its emissions dramatically is so difficult and requires such a massive change in infrastructure and the way of doing business, the International Energy Agency doesn’t envision the cement industry getting to zero carbon emissions by 2050. Instead there will still be emissions from cement, steel and aviation that need to be balanced out with negative emissions elsewhere, said IEA researchers Tiffany Voss and Peter Levi.

“These are hard, hard to cut,” Andrew said.

But industry’s Bohan said his group is certain that they can get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, if it gets help from governments and especially cement users to accept and use green cement properly. One of several ways to make greener cement is to mix in fly ash, which is a waste product from burning coal, in place of some of the clinker and he said there’s more than enough fly ash available even with coal use reductions.

IEA’s Voss said the switch to green cement “is not there yet” because of technology, infrastructure and other concerns. But many in and outside the industry are working on the problem.

China is key because it produced more than half of the world’s cement emissions in 2021, with India a distant second at about 9%, Andrew’s data shows. The United States spewed 2.5% of the emissions from cement, ranking fifth behind Vietnam and Turkey.

“China is a huge country and its development ramped up,” Andrew said. “It’s driven everything.”

China is not just making and using more cement, but the carbon intensity has been going up a lot lately, IEA’s Voss said. That’s because earlier in its development, China was using cheaper, weaker low-clinker cement and buildings and bridges were collapsing, so now the Chinese government is mandating stronger cement, Norway’s Andrew said.

That’s a reasonable conservatism that slows efforts at making greener cement, Davis said. People are not eager to try untested cement recipes because “these are the structural materials of our society,” he said.

For example, Portland limestone cement has 10% less emissions but customers are so worried about strength they often say they are only willing to use it if they use 10% more, industry’s Bohan said.

Different cement uses have specific needs, such as strength versus longevity but users often just want the strongest and most durable when they don’t need it and this causes unnecessary emissions, Bohan said.

And while people talk about curtailing flying, global aviation emissions are less than half of that coming from concrete, according to Global Carbon Project. There’s “flight shaming” among scientists and activists, but no building shaming, Davis said.

Cement as it ages does suck some carbon dioxide out of the air, just like trees do, in small measurable, significant amounts, Jackson said.

“Our primary focus needs to be on fossil fuel use because that’s where most emissions come from,” Stanford’s Jackson said. “I don’t think cement is on most policymakers’ radar.”

Perhaps not on most, but it is on some. California, Colorado, New Jersey and New York have all passed legislation on cleaner concrete and the trend is growing.

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

WHO considers declaring monkeypox a global health emergency

By MARIA CHENG

This 2003 electron microscope image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows mature, oval-shaped monkeypox virions, left, and spherical immature virions, right, obtained from a sample of human skin associated with the 2003 prairie dog outbreak. The World Health Organization will convene an emergency committee of experts to determine if the expanding monkeypox outbreak that has mysteriously spread outside its usual zones should be considered an international public health emergency. (Cynthia S. Goldsmith, Russell Regner/CDC via AP, file)


LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization convenes its emergency committee Thursday to consider if the spiraling outbreak of monkeypox warrants being declared a global emergency. But some experts say the WHO’s decision to act only after the disease spilled into the West could entrench the grotesque inequities that arose between rich and poor countries during the coronavirus pandemic.

Declaring monkeypox to be a global emergency would mean the U.N. health agency considers the outbreak to be an “extraordinary event” and that the disease is at risk of spreading across even more borders, possibly requiring a global response. It would also give monkeypox the same distinction as the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing effort to eradicate polio.

The WHO said it did not expect to announce any decisions made by its emergency committee before Friday.

Many scientists doubt any such declaration would help to curb the epidemic, since the developed countries recording the most recent cases are already moving quickly to shut it down.

Last week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the recent monkeypox epidemic identified in more than 40 countries, mostly in Europe, as “unusual and concerning.” Monkeypox has sickened people for decades in central and west Africa, where one version of the disease kills up to 10% of people infected. The version of the disease seen in Europe and elsewhere usually has a fatality rate of less than 1% and no deaths beyond Africa have so far been reported.

“If WHO was really worried about monkeypox spread, they could have convened their emergency committee years ago when it reemerged in Nigeria in 2017 and no one knew why we suddenly had hundreds of cases,” said Oyewale Tomori, a Nigerian virologist who sits on several WHO advisory groups. “It is a bit curious that WHO only called their experts when the disease showed up in white countries,” he said.

Until last month, monkeypox had not caused sizeable outbreaks beyond Africa. Scientists haven’t found any mutations in the virus that suggest it’s more transmissible, and a leading adviser to the WHO said last month the surge of cases in Europe was likely tied to sexual activity among gay and bisexual men at two raves in Spain and Belgium.

To date, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed more than 3,300 cases of monkeypox in 42 countries where the virus hasn’t been typically seen. More than 80% of cases are in Europe. Meanwhile, Africa has already seen more than 1,400 cases this year, including 62 deaths.

David Fidler, a senior fellow in global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the WHO’s newfound attention to monkeypox amid its spread beyond Africa could inadvertently worsen the divide between rich and poor countries seen during COVID-19.

“There may be legitimate reasons why WHO only raised the alarm when monkeypox spread to rich countries, but to poor countries, that looks like a double standard,” Fidler said. He said the global community was still struggling to ensure the world’s poor were vaccinated against the coronavirus and that it was unclear if Africans even wanted monkeypox vaccines, given competing priorities like malaria and HIV.

“Unless African governments specifically ask for vaccines, it might be a bit patronizing to send them because it’s in the West’s interest to stop monkeypox from being exported,” Fidler said.

The WHO has also proposed creating a vaccine-sharing mechanism to help affected countries, which could see doses go to rich countries like Britain, which has the biggest monkeypox outbreak beyond Africa — and recently widened its use of vaccines.

To date, the vast majority of cases in Europe have been in men who are gay or bisexual, or other men who have sex with men, but scientists warn anyone in close contact with an infected person or their clothing or bedsheets is at risk of infection, regardless of their sexual orientation. People with monkeypox often experience symptoms like fever, body aches and a rash; most recover within weeks without medical care.

Even if the WHO announces monkeypox is a global emergency, it’s unclear what impact that might have.

In January 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 an international emergency. But few countries took notice until March, when the organization described it as a pandemic, weeks after many other authorities did so. The WHO was later slammed for its multiple missteps throughout the pandemic, which some experts said might be prompting a quicker monkeypox response.

“After COVID, WHO does not want to be the last to declare monkeypox an emergency,” said Amanda Glassman, executive vice president at the Center for Global Development. “This may not rise to the level of a COVID-like emergency, but it is still a public health emergency that needs to be addressed.”

Salim Abdool Karim, an epidemiologist and vice chancellor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, said the WHO and others should be doing more to stop monkeypox in Africa and elsewhere, but wasn’t convinced that a global emergency declaration would help.

“There is this misplaced idea that Africa is this poor, helpless continent, when in fact, we do know how to deal with epidemics,” said Abdool Karim. He said that stopping the outbreak ultimately depends on things like surveillance, isolating patients and public education.

“Maybe they need vaccines in Europe to stop monkeypox, but here, we have been able to control it with very simple measures,” he said.

77 years after battle’s end, Okinawa wants US base reduced

By MARI YAMAGUCHI

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Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, offers a silent prayer during a ceremony at the Peace Memorial Park in Itoman, Okinawa, southern Japan Thursday, June 23, 2022. Japan marked the Battle of Okinawa, one of the bloodiest battles of World War II fought on the southern Japanese island, which ended 77 years ago, Thursday. 

(Kyodo News via AP)


TOKYO (AP) — Okinawa marked the 77th anniversary Thursday of the end of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, with the governor calling for a further reduction of the U.S. military presence there as local fears grow that the southern Japanese islands will become embroiled in regional military tension.

The Battle of Okinawa killed about 200,000 people, nearly half of them Okinawan residents. Japan’s wartime military, in an attempt to delay a U.S. landing on the main islands, essentially sacrificed the local population.

Many in Okinawa are worried about the growing deployment of Japanese missile defense and amphibious capabilities on outer islands that are close to geopolitical hotspots like Taiwan.

At a ceremony marking the June 23, 1945, end of the battle, about 300 attendants in Okinawa, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and other officials, offered a moment of silence at noon and placed chrysanthemums for the war dead. The number of attendants was scaled down because of coronavirus worries.

At the ceremony in Itoman city on Okinawa’s main island, Gov. Denny Tamaki spoke of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying the destruction of towns, buildings and the local culture, as well as Ukrainians’ constant fear, “remind us of our memory of the ground battle on Okinawa that embroiled citizens 77 years ago.”

“We are struck by unspeakable shock,” he said.

Tamaki also vowed to continue efforts to abolish nuclear weapons and renounce war “in order to never let Okinawa become a battlefield.”

In May, Okinawa marked the 50th anniversary of its reversion to Japan in 1972, two decades after the U.S. occupation ended in most of the country.

Today, a majority of the 50,000 U.S. troops based in Japan under a bilateral security pact and 70% of U.S. military facilities are still in Okinawa, which accounts for only 0.6% of Japanese land.

Because of the U.S. bases, Okinawa faces noise, pollution, accidents and crime related to American troops, Tamaki said.

Kishida acknowledged the need for more government efforts to reduce Okinawa’s burden from U.S. military bases as well as more support for the islands’ economic development, which fell behind during their 27-year U.S. occupation.

Resentment and frustration run deep in Okinawa over the heavy U.S. presence and Tokyo’s lack of efforts to negotiate with Washington to balance the security burden between mainland Japan and the southern island group.

Kishida, citing the worsening security environment in regional seas in the face of threats from China, North Korea and Russia, has pledged to bolster Japan’s military capability and budget in coming years, including enemy attack capabilities that critics say interfere with Japan’s pacifist Constitution.

Tanzania’s Masaai demand Indigenous rights in UN framework

By WANJOHI KABUKURU

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Jonathan Mpute ole Pasha, national coordinator of the Maa Unity Agenda group, is surrounded by tear gas thrown by police to break up a small demonstration of Maasai rights activists outside the Tanzanian high commission in downtown Nairobi, Kenya Friday, June 17, 2022. Tanzania's government is accused of violently trying to evict Maasai herders from one of the country's most popular tourist destinations, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Tanzania’s Maasai people, resisting government pressure to leave their ancestral homes in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, have presented their demands for Indigenous land rights to negotiators in Nairobi finalizing the proposed U.N. global biodiversity framework.

The appeal by the Masaai community of Loliando on Thursday follows a violent confrontation with Tanzanian security forces two weeks ago which forced many of them to flee to neighboring Kenya.

A decision by the East African Court of Justice on the politically sensitive issue was expected this week but has been postponed until later this year due to “unavoidable circumstances,” according to a court notice.

“We are being accused by our government as being destroyers of our environment and denied citizenship of Tanzania,” said the Maasai in their letter to the U.N. biodiversity meeting. “This is the fourth forceful eviction from our land. And our leaders languish in detention in big numbers. 20 of them are being charged with murder. We cannot tell the world of the happenings because media is banned from covering our story.”

Cases of abuse, torture and large-scale evictions continue to be reported among Indigenous communities as observed in Tanzania, where the Maasai community says it faces displacement to create a protected area for hunting.

The Maasai leaders were joined by civil society actors and other Indigenous community leaders in their calls for the inclusion and recognition of Indigenous land, territories and tenure rights in the framework, which is expected to be endorsed by world leaders when they meet in Montreal, Canada in December this year.

“The only way this can be a strong instrument is by incorporating and ensuring a strong human rights element and respecting the role of Indigenous peoples and local communities,” said Lucy Mulenkei, the co-chair of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, at a press conference on the sidelines of the negotiations.

The Indigenous forum has also called for free prior and informed consent of land use as well as a sound financial mechanism for conservation.

“If we don’t have a framework to protect nature that truly recognizes and respects the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities, who are actually conserving biodiversity humanity is going to be in danger,” said the Indigenous forum’s Ramiro Batzin.

The global biodiversity framework is set to replace the older Aichi Biodiversity Targets, that were agreed by the U.N. parties at a convention on biological diversity in 2010 in the Japanese prefecture of Aichi. None of the Aichi agreements’ 20 targets were met by the time the 2020 deadline elapsed. The ongoing Nairobi negotiations are a carry-over of intensive negotiations after failure to secure consensus in Geneva in March this year.

Key issues are still up for debate, with richer countries disagreeing with developing nations on several sticking points, such as benefit-sharing, removing incentives for harming nature, biotechnology and financing for developing countries to strengthen national aims and technology.

The proposed biodiversity framework is seeking to comprehensively tackle a number of global environmental concerns including pollution, climate change and other human-caused impacts on nature such as illegal wildlife trades, habitat loss and overconsumption.

The decline of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystems exacerbates climate change, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It says the new framework must “aim to halt biodiversity loss by 2030 and achieve recovery by 2050.”

National coordinator of the Maa Unity Agenda group Jonathan Mpute ole Pasha, center, and another activist, left, sit arrested in the back of a police truck after police used tear gas to break up a small demonstration of Maasai rights activists outside the Tanzanian high commission in downtown Nairobi, Kenya Friday, June 17, 2022. Tanzania's government is accused of violently trying to evict Maasai herders from one of the country's most popular tourist destinations, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

NEW LATIN AMERICAN LEFT
Colombia: President-elect looks to build governing coalition

By ASTRID SUÁREZ

Colombian President-elect Gustavo Petro, right, and running mate Francia Marquez, join hands during a ceremony that certifies their election victory, in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, June 23, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — President-elect Gustavo Petro, who has vowed to lift up Colombia’s poor and disenfranchised, has won the support of an influential party of the establishment as he tries to build a majority coalition in Congress.

Petro, a former Bogotá mayor and a member of the M-19 rebel group that disarmed decades ago, has won the support of the Liberal Party, which backed another candidate in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election. Petro won the second round on Sunday in a blow to political traditionalists who have presided for generations over Colombia, through violence and corruption, as well as economic growth and institutional stability.

The decision by the Liberal Party, led by ex-president César Gaviria, to join Petro’s Historic Pact group shows the pragmatic side of the president-elect as he makes political deals aimed at executing an ambitious legislative agenda that includes fiscal, agrarian, pension and other changes.

“We won’t be a party of opposition,” Gaviria said in a statement Wednesday. Details still have to be worked out regarding the Liberal’s Party role in a governing coalition and how it can collaborate with 62-year-old Petro’s camp, he said.

The Liberal Party is one of the largest groups in the bicameral Congress, with 14 senators in the 108-seat Senate and 32 representatives in the 187-seat lower house.

Petro’s Historic Pact has 20 seats in the Senate and 27 in the House of Representatives. A coalition including the Liberals and other allies would bring it closer to a parliamentary majority.

Sandra Borda, a political analyst at the University of Los Andes in Bogotá, said that a lot remains unclear about Petro’s vision of a “national accord” in which all sectors of society get involved.

“We have to see what will be the content of the policies that Congress will support, and in exchange for what,” Borda said. Foreign governments and international investors will follow closely to see who Petro picks as finance minister, which could indicate whether he plans on heavier state involvement in the economy, she said.

Some 47% of the electorate voted for real estate tycoon Rodolfo Hernández, who lost to Petro in the second round. As the losing candidate, Hernández was still guaranteed a Senate seat and he said Thursday that he would take it.

Petro is virtually certain to face robust opposition from the Democratic Center, the party founded by a former president, Álvaro Uribe. Current President Iván Duque, who by law was not allowed to run for a second term, is a member of the Democratic Center. He will hand power to Petro on Aug. 7.

PERMANENT FAILED STATE
Official: 8 more die as Haiti prisons lack food, water

By EVENS SANON and DÁNICA COTO

FILE - National police search for escaped inmates on the perimeters of the Croix-des-Bouquets Civil Prison in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Feb. 25, 2021. The United Nations Security Council released a report in June 2022 saying 54 prison deaths related to malnutrition were documented in Haiti between January and April alone. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery, File)


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — An official said Thursday that at least eight inmates have died at an overcrowded prison in Haiti that ran out of food two months ago, adding to dozens of similar deaths this year as the country’s institutions crumble.

Hunger and oppressive heat contributed to the inmates’ deaths reported this week by the prison in the southwest city of Les Cayes, Ronald Richemond, the city’s government commissioner, told The Associated Press. He said the prison houses 833 inmates.

“Whoever can help should help immediately because the prisoners are in need,” he said.

The United Nations Security Council released a report last week saying 54 prison deaths related to malnutrition were documented in Haiti between January and April alone in the country of more than 11 million people.

It urged Haiti’s government “to take the necessary measures to find a long-lasting solution to the prison food, water and medicine crisis.”

The country’s severely overcrowded prison system has long struggled to provide food and water to inmates. It blames insufficient government funds and the problem has worsened in recent months, leading to a new rise in severe malnutrition and deaths.

By law, prisons in Haiti are required to provide inmates with water and two meals a day, which usually consist of porridge and a bowl of rice with fish or some type of meat.

But in recent months, inmates have been forced to rely solely on friends or family for food and water, and many times they are unable to visit because gang-related violence makes some areas impassable, said Michelle Karshan, co-founder of the nonprofit Health through Walls, which provides health care in Haiti’s prisons.

The nonprofit joined three other organizations this year to feed the roughly 11,000 inmates in Haiti’s 20 prisons for three months, helping at a time when the country was increasingly unstable following the July 7 killing of President Jovenel Moïse.

But the situation has since deteriorated.

“These deaths are very painful,” she said. “The internal organs start to fail one by one. ... It’s a horrible thing to witness.”

Health through Walls has launched several programs to target the problem long term, including starting a garden at a prison in northern Haiti that produces spinach and other crops, along with a chicken coop and a fish farm.

“But that’s one prison,” Karshan said. “The bottom line is the prison system has to take responsibility. They can’t sit back. ... They’re the government.”

Les Cayes and other cities in Haiti’s southern region also have been affected by a spike in gang violence that has blocked the main roads leading out of Haiti’s capital, making it extremely difficult to distribute food and other supplies to the rest of the country, said Pierre Espérance, executive director of Haiti’s National Human Rights Defense Network.

In addition, a water pump that the Les Cayes prison relies on has long been broken, forcing relatives and friends of inmates to carry buckets of water from long distances, Richemond said.

Les Cayes, like surrounding cities, is also still struggling to recover from a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck southwest Haiti in August, killing more than 2,200 people and destroying or damaging thousands of buildings.

Richemond said some of the prison cells were destroyed and have not been rebuilt, forcing authorities to cram even more people into a smaller space.

The cell occupancy rate in Haiti stands at more than 280% of capacity, with 83% of inmates stuck in pretrial detentions that in some cases can drag on for more than a decade before an initial court appearance, according to the U.N. Many prisoners take turns sleeping on the floor while others simply stand or try to make hammocks and attach them to cell windows, paying someone to keep their spot.

In January 2010, some 400 detainees at the prison in Les Cayes rioted to protest the worsening conditions. Authorities said police killed at least 12 inmates, and up to 40 others were wounded.

Espérance, with the National Human Rights Defense Network, blamed the current situation on the government and said officials need to impose rule of law.

“The situation is getting worse every day,” he said. “They can only fix the problem for one or two weeks. After that, the problem will continue. Today, it’s Les Cayes. Tomorrow, it could be somewhere else.”

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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

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